Monthly Archives: January 2009

it’s the morning after the night we poured ourselves through the chinatown new year night market. every year we go, and every year we say how insane it all is, and then a year passes and we forget, and we do it all again. the kid spent two hours in someone’s arms, buffeted, or on someone’s shoulders, above the crowd, so she basically did ok. the rest of us stopped when the crowd did, moved when it moved, and if we were sweaty enough at a certain point in time, we slimed past whoever was in the way.

me, i seemed to be sweatier than most, because we had thought it prudent earlier in the evening to dine on bowls of bakut teh and steamed buns; my body temperature was already up by a couple of degrees. eventually, when we tired of seeing the same exotic delicacies being peddled by every third shop (this year’s new inclusions appeared to be a range of flavoured taiwanese rice cakes, and fig jelly), we insinuated ourselves into a quiet crevice between two stalls, and replenished our sweat glands with icy cold sour plum drinks.

“will we go again next year?” i asked my mother.

“no,” she said, most decisively. “except maybe to buy mushrooms.”

right now i am fortifying myself with a mug of almond-flavoured soy milk. i had seen an ad for it on the back of a bus on the way home from the airport a week ago, and had rushed out and bought a carton the very next morning. see how effective an 8-ft high photograph of a carton of soy milk can be?

the last of which i would be quite overjoyed to eat every day, but which would leave little room for the bakkwa-on-white-bread sandwiches, or the sambal prawn rolls, or the mangosteens/duku langsat/jackfruit trinity.

if only this could be my only quandry, rather than the pathological fear the kid has developed, of public toilets which flush automatically. in this city, that is the most tiresome thing of all.

- – -this was originally posted to the ragingyoghurt facebook page,
while the blog lay dormant.

it was the evening my sister returned from a day at the blue mountains. she had been perched on a grubby metal step — hell, let’s call it the floor of the train — for the duration of the journey back to the city, and been kicked by a rat-faced little boy with a filthy mouth to match. after which there was another lackluster ride on another train — a sushi train — for dinner; it was the second last day of the old year, after all.

and so she and the frenchman tumbled back to the house, and frenchie took his place on the blue couch with the red controller and earned himself another five mario stars, and my sister handed me a little package wrapped in a purple paper bag.

i shook it, as i asked, “can i eat it?”

“well…” she said.

“oh! is it matches?” i ventured.

i felt the exhalation more than i heard it.

“but wait ’til you see them,” she said.

“are they pink?”

but she had no chance to answer, because i had slid the box open, and there they were.

it was exactly as it had been a couple of weeks earlier, when my aunt brought my grandmother ’round for a little birthday morning tea. after the sour cream fruit loaf which my aunt had made — un-iced, though solemnly adorned with whole pecans — my grandmother was presented with a few wrapped-up parcels, and as she ran her hands over each one, she pronounced decisively, and uncannily, “purse,” or “cookbook”. clearly, i have inherited her gift.

and now, two weeks into the new year, things are still nice, though rather a lot hotter than i’d like, especially today when the trains running through western sydney were not air-conditioned, and i thought i might just vapourise on my way home from facilitating an image-making workshop with some young, especially giggly muslim girls in granville.

things are nice, with the intensive swimming classes, and the lemonade icy poles, and the giant red megaphones in the shadow of the opera house, and between it all, i find i haven’t the time — or, alas, the inclination — to blog anymore. shame, i cannot tell you about the salty peanut butter cup taste test, or the wonderful lunch before the crazy-ass thunderstorm, at gastronomia pelagio. what about the cabbage salad at pompei, which turned out to be a great mound of shredded cabbage, dressed simply with a truffled olive oil and garnished with a few planes of parmesan? almost as delicious as the prosciutto and fig pizza one plate over. (let’s not even talk about dessert — a scoop of peach sorbet nudging a scoop of pistachio, both as creamy lush as they were intense.)

it’s not that i would not like to keep telling you stories. but i think that i must step away for a moment, just a quickstep in the vast scheme of things you understand, until the sky is less burny, and my time management improves, and i figure out the terrible minotaur’s labyrinth that is customising a wordpress template.

and when i return, i will drag an rss feed out with me! yes!

in the meantime, otherwordygirls will tell you many a fine story, and point you in the direction of a good feed too.

and because i am never far from the innernet (as much a blessing as it is a curse, i tells ya), i might post an update or two on my brand spankin’ new ragingyoghurt facebook page. ok, just for you, a photograph of the cabbage salad goes up as we speak.

and yeah, what the matchbox said: thanks, for coming by. it pleases me that you do.